Pam, Tim and CBS

04Feb10

Recap: CBS is airing an ad during the Superbowl featuring star college quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam, discussing how Pam chose to carry Tim to term instead of having a doctor-suggested abortion. IIRC, the commercial is sponsored by Focus on the Family and is supposed to inspire us all to criminalize abortion.

First: I have no trouble whatsoever with Pam and Tim telling their story. The kernel of it is “Pam chose to carry her son to term.” The verb in that sentence is chose. Like most pro-choicers, I am pro-choice. (Fancy that.)

Second: The problem I DO have is the use of “Pam chose to carry her son to term” as an anti-choice message. Pam’s not just telling her story, here: she’s telling it as a way to sell to the country the idea that other women should be required to carry their fetuses to term; crucially, that other women should not have the same choice Pam had. That is, to put it kindly, bullshit.

(Additionally, the implied message that every woman who chooses life will produce the finest quarterback ever to breathe Floridian air is silly. Of no real consequence, but silly.)

Third: I do not wholly buy CBS’s reasoning for allowing this particular political ad when they have not allowed political ads in the past. According to NPR, CBS is allowing this one because they could afford to turn away all political ads in past years, but cannot this year due to the economy. Really? CBS couldn’t find ONE MORE advertiser to take the Pam/Tim slot? Smells fishy to me.